Posted
by
Soulskill
on Tuesday December 13, 2011 @01:44PM
from the come-fly-the-friendly-skies dept.

PolygamousRanchKid sends this quote from the LA Times:
"The Obama administration has sent a formal diplomatic request asking Iran to return the radar-evading drone aircraft that crashed on a CIA spying mission this month, but U.S. officials say they don't expect Iran will comply. 'We have asked for it back,' Obama said Monday at a news conference in Washington with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. 'We'll see how the Iranians respond.' His comments marked the first public confirmation that the RQ-170 Sentinel drone now in Iranian hands is a U.S. aircraft, though U.S. officials privately acknowledged that in recent days. Iran has claimed it downed the stealthy surveillance drone, but U.S. officials say it malfunctioned. Capture of the futuristic-looking unmanned spy plane has provided Tehran with a propaganda windfall. The government announced that it planned to clone and mass produce the bat-winged craft for use against its enemies."
Iran has also demanded an apology from the U.S. for the drone flight in its airspace.

No it is more like having a camera suspended OVER your neighbor house, then the enighbors downit with a stone throw, and then asking it back, while playing innocent and offering a lot of denial of anything wrong.

Surprisingly yes. So far the claims from the US coalition have been that the drone was lost somewhere over western Afghanistan and not in Iran. The truth of that statement can be called into effect but it would be like flying a remote controlled helicopter around your yard that crashed into your neighbor's yard.

What a competent president would have done is sent another drone to destroy it so the technology didn't fall into the hands of every enemy state in the world.

Yeah, an act of war against a foreign nation after they shoot down your spy drone that was in their airspace sounds like a great plan. Particularly when they're one of the world's largest oil suppliers and gas would probably hit $10 a gallon.

Forget the fact that they are one of the largest oil exports. Don't ignore the fact that they can close the Straight of Hormuz which would choke off the oil supply coming out of THE LARGEST oil supplier.

Yes, and no. The mail oil port on the side of Saudi Arabia is within range of coastal missile batteries fired from Iran. Hormuz is just the easiest point to secure. Iran can move batteries around and still threaten a huge swath of water. It's enough to serve as a hesitation for any ships trying to use that waterway. The US Navy cannot have ships deployed all across it to ensure that no trade vessels are susceptible to Iranian attack. Further, retaliatory strikes from the US against such shore batteries migh

If it is an act of war against a foreign nation... what do you call it when several helicopters full of navy seals are sent into a foreign nation to kidnap or kill an individual who is living there with the implicit permission of the host nation, killing anyone who resists, taking the body of the target out... all without notice or permission of the host nation?

Do you really want to play a game of "lets pick and choose what we call an act of war"?

Um, no. Congress has to declare war. Article 1, section 8 of the constitution, listing the powers of congress. "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;" Source [usconstitution.net]

That could be considered an act of war. But then again, some might also consider a terrorist mass-murderer, engineer of an attack killing over 3,000 civilians and some unknown number of other attacks, living in a supposedly allied country, apparently with their implicit permission, to be an act of war as well. While we're at it, allowing "protesters" to attack an embassy in your country and hold everyone inside hostage for years is also generally considered to be an act of war. So is sponsoring attacks against the armed forces of another country.

If the United States military invades, occupies, or bombs your country for decades, I can see why people in Arab lands might get angry and would want to eventually fight back at some point. If you are defending yourself against attacks to your home, that is generally considered to be Good by most reasonable standards. The United States is by FAR the most aggressive military nation in the world.

But then again, some might also consider a terrorist mass-murderer, engineer of an attack killing over 3,000 civilians and some unknown number of other attacks, living in a supposedly allied country, apparently with their implicit permission, to be an act of war as well.

That may be, but I don't think that the US is going to allow the Bushes, Clinton, Kissinger, Rumsfeld, etc. to be extradited. The Pakistanis, Iraqis, Indonesians, Cubans, Nicaraguans, etc. are just out of luck. Only the US and Israel are allowed to pursue revenge killings.

Well it wouldn't be completely unprecedented, as I'm fairly sure we've blown up in-development nuclear enrichment facilities before with cruise missiles. Iran is already being threatened with a boycott of their oil by Europe, one of the main consumers of their oil. The larger problem is Iran's threat to perform live fire maneuvers in the Strait of Hormuz, blocking around 17% of the world oil supply from being able to reach Europe and Africa.

A president like that would have caused the deaths of dozens, hundreds, or maybe tens of thousands of people depending on how much such an ensuing conflict would escalate to. Thank God we're not all dicks like you who think that it's worth killing people you don't know and spending collective money that you don't have because someone hurt your imaginary feelings.

IF its that secret. But there are indications its not all that secret or sensitive (despite public statements to the contrary).

There is considerable speculation on the web that there is not that much secret stuff in this aircraft anyway, because it was fully expected they would have operational losses. See Here [wikipedia.org]:

The design lacks several elements common to stealth engineering, namely notched landing gear doors and sharp leading edges. It has a curved wing planform, and the exhaust is not shielded by the wing.[10] Aviation Week postulates that these elements suggest the designers have avoided 'highly sensitive technologies' due to the near certainty of eventual operational loss inherent with a single engine design and a desire to avoid the risk of compromising leading edge technology.

These drones do have a self-destruct as well as other "things are going wrong" modes. One of them is to just circle waiting for control communications to be re-established. Another one is an automatic safe landing mode. Some people suspect that this drone may have gone into auto landing mode which would explain why it appears undamaged. For such a sensitive device leading to such horrible PR if captured, I feel perhaps the self-destruct should be the default failure mode:)However, having it just blow up in some civilian household would probably not be good PR either.

Auto-landing is a high suspicion. That mode would probably circle lazily to the ground and the damage to drone is at the edge of one of the wings which would be consistent with such a landing if that wing was the inner facing wing. Additionally, none of the images show the underside which would give a pretty large indication of the mode of landing. There's also some damage that suggests the wings were separated but that could have been done by Iran after getting to it in order to move it.

These drones do have a self-destruct as well as other "things are going wrong" modes. One of them is to just circle waiting for control communications to be re-established. Another one is an automatic safe landing mode. Some people suspect that this drone may have gone into auto landing mode which would explain why it appears undamaged. For such a sensitive device leading to such horrible PR if captured, I feel perhaps the self-destruct should be the default failure mode:).

Maybe it isn't supposed to detonate yet...

I don't know about the rest of you, but I would feel VERY sketchy about standing, touching, being anywhere in the vicinity of a weapon from another super power that was "captured."

Doubtful. The paint is only part of the puzzle and a piece that they already have. The most valuable part is probably in the firmware. If they can unencrypt it, they can understand how to better jam it's command functions and also what electronic countermeasures it has.

I heard it reported that the software was the most sensitive part of the drone and that it was remotely destroyed on landing. Surprises me, as I would imagine the hardware was a pretty big deal too. In any case the US doesn't seem to concerned.

In January 2007, the encryption method was fully reverse-engineered by Andreas Naive[3] and Nicola Salmoria. It has been determined that the encryption employs two four-round Feistel ciphers with a 64-bit key.[4][5] The algorithm was thereafter implemented in this state for all known CPS-2 games in MAME.

Encryption can be broken, especially when you have physical access to the device that needs to do the decryption. There are all sorts of controls and booby-traps you can implement to restrict physical access, but a knowledgable and well funded lab can get around the controls.

Adequate physical destruction cannot be reverse engineered - once you destroy a chip with a high energy, high temperature explosion, not even all of the kings horses and all of the kings men wil

If they circumvent the encryption, the US can nail them under the DMCA. And if they clone it, boy are they in for a heap of trouble with IP and patent violations. No, I don't even see how they could possibly even consider doing any of that.

Dick Cheney has criticized Obama's handling of this incident, saying that he should have ordered an airstrike immediately to prevent the tech from falling into Iranian hands. Sounds pretty crazy to me.Also, upon further reading it sounds like the designers may have purposely avoided sensitive cutting-edge technology due to the high probability of a single-engined UAV failing over enemy territory.

I was amazed to see the resolutions that HD USB webcams go up to these days (1920x1080 upwards) along with auto-focus, digital zoom, pan and tilt. A high-resolution CCD combined with motorized focus and fisheye lens means that the camera can "look round" without having any other motors apart from the focus. If that can be done for a two-figure sum, Military drone just needs to add satellite-communications, some basic avionics and some IR optics.

Actually I'm surprised that the drone didn't have a failsafe self destruct, the missile that I worked on had one; if it lost a certain classified signal for a classified length of time the warhead would detonate. One would think that with all of the classified coatings, sensors, avionics and airframe it would have been rigged to the gills.

One would think, but apparently the don't always work right. Two of the missiles that Clinton launched at Binladden crashed in Pakistan, and only one self-destructed. The other one supplies the basis of the Pakistani cruise missile program, and (IIRC) was eventually sold to China.

Well, the US claims it was in Afghanistan. But I'm sure it was in Iran, just like those British sailors the Iranians abducted a couple of years ago.

I'm not American, but you have to be a complete moron to think the Iranian government is more trustworthy than the US. If it comes down to he-said/she-said, I'm willing to give the Yanks the benefit of the doubt. Iran has a history of "flexible" borders.

Those British sailors that Iran captured were definitely not in Iranian waters. Iran has pulled that stunt several years earlier too, with British sailors again. But this drone was in Iran, performing surveillance on Iranian targets, and then crashed due to a mechanical malfunction of some kind. Iran didn't shoot it down or commandeer it and try to land it, and it didn't accidentally fly over into Iranian territory from Afghanistan.

As the other poster noted, when you have a downlink that's shooting out live video feeds, the people on the ground need to have access to that data in near real time and you're not going to run every soldier that -might- be using the link through a SECRET/TOP SECRET security clearance check before allowing them to have access to it. Then you have to redistribute the keys to all those soldiers whenever they get swapped out. It's a logistical nightmare that doesn't net you much of a benefit in light of the below...

What the US is observing in real time is of limited usage. Without knowing the location of the observer, a top down view of a place can be very difficult to make useful, especially depending on how close the view is. Without readily discernible landmarks identifying buildings from other buildings it can be extremely difficult to discern where you're looking. As an example, get someone to pick a point in the city you live on the closest zoom level on Google Maps. Don't use any street names. Now try to ID where you're looking at. Further, just seeing what is being observed isn't 100% indicative of the intentions of the observer's actions and knowing that they view the streams has potential applications in the realms of disinformation. For instance, if we knew some insurgents were monitoring the downlink and were holed up in a building we could station a net around the build then use the drone to watch the building and wait for them to flee into more open terrain and be caught by the net.

I'm sure their clone will be almost as good as mine, but probably not actually as good.

The important technology in the device is embedded in chips that are the most tamper resistant devices on the planet, they'll be utterly destroyed and unusable for reverse engineering well before they get anywhere near the tech.

The optics I'm sure are impressive, but not so much that they'll get some giant leap.

The encryption keys were worthless before the aircraft hit the ground.

The paint and fuselage material are the most important things on it that they can gather data from that isn't already something they can get their hands on through other channels.

Its just silly for anyone to think they have a snowballs chance in hell of doing anything it it. It would be hard for US to reverse engineer it, let alone Iran.

How absolutely ridiculous of them to ask us to apologize for committing an act of war. Hasn't anybody been paying attention? The US, and only the US, has the right to invade other countries' airspace, kidnap, torture, and murder their citizens, and then accuse those countries of breaking the law. That's how democracy works.
Those silly backward Iranians just don't get it. It must be Islam's fault.

It's possible that we deliberately downed a drone over Iran with a modern appearance but made with the wrong materials, and with old sensors and electronics generally — or maybe with electronics deeply flawed in a subtle way — with the intent of having Russia and China get their hands on it and then underestimate our capabilities. It's possible, that is, that this is actually an intelligence coup of the highest order.

Knowing our government from inside experience, though, I'm voting for the assclown theory as the survivor of Occam's razor.

Actually under international law they are supposed to return any wreckage from an aircraft that crashes in their territory. That is during peace time. Also as long as the aircraft was not "military" and not armed it is not considered an act of war.

"So basically, according to you, the US should return the wrecks of the 9/11 planes? Do you realize now how stupid that makes you sound?"The 9/11 planes belonged to US companies and where US registered planes... They never left the US...As to how stupid my comment is.... Well a mirror may be in order.

IANAL, but according to the precedent set by Keepers Vs. Weepers, I think the US will have a very hard time convincing the courts for the immediate return of their supposed property unless they can get their mommy and daddy involved.

Oh, this was in Iran? Well, we know where this is going. The US will just go over to Iran's house and shoot his parents in the face.

The government announced that it planned to clone and mass produce the bat-winged craft for use against its enemies.

Good luck with that. Unless you have some magical way to reverse-engineer likely 100,000+ lines of compiled source code, you'll never have more than a remote-controlled airplane with a fancy skin.

And I really expect that the software is encrypted (or possibly even destroyed). Also, with the expected levels of anti-temper built into the hardware (required by the US Government since the start of this decade), they'll have a helluva time speccing-out the hardware interfaces using test tools.

Good luck writing your own software from scratch with no idea how the hardware works!

Now, if they had performed a cyber-attack and stolen source code and hardware specs, THEN I would be concerned. The plane part is relatively easy to build.

Oh, then by all means, go edit history [wikipedia.org]. The edit button is right at the top. Good luck.

But the reason that we can trust the CIA in this matter is because it's declassified internal document logging the blackops that the CIA performed. This is their dirty laundry that they wouldn't want anyone to see.

If you think that coup is utterly unrelated to the subsequent history of Iran and U.S./Iranian relations you're either a complete idiot or willfully deluded. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter.

Or like stealing the last election to prop up the Revolutionary Guard's puppet and when the people don't like it, beating the hell out of them, killing them and/or imprisoning them, even going so far as to not return bodies of the dead to their families but burying them in graves in restricted areas, where families can't visit. Cuz, you know, they RG runs Iran, not the Mullahs or Ayathollah, which are allowed to go about their business, pretending there's some actual republic when it's really all a sham and military coup by feat.

What I'd like to know is why these drones don't even have a Self Destruct on a dead-man switch, out of contact for so long and sensitive bits are fused by a burning strip of Sodium or such.

Assuming it even has any real "secrets". According to Wikipedia's article on the RQ-170:

Aviation Week postulates that these elements suggest the designers have avoided 'highly sensitive technologies' due to the near certainty of eventual operational loss inherent with a single engine design and a desire to avoid the risk of compromising leading edge technology.

(quote was from well before this loss, BTW). Most of the tech Iran doesn't have is likely to be in the electronics, and those are not easy to reverse engineer (things like the AESA radar system). China and Russia already have most of those. They might wanna take a look just for any new ideas or design differences, but it's not like these things are F-22s or anything.

In many cases, classified technology isn't so much a matter of technological superiority as figuring out what the parameters of the problem are. Sometimes building countermeasures is just a matter of discovering what frequencies to block. Once that's known, blocking them is simple.

Its not likely that Iran will be able to build drones for use against us by examining this one. After all, how do they know whether or not our radar can see our own drones. They'd have to capture an example of our radar and exami

Your post denotes a big ignorance about Iran's manufacturing base. Those guys make their own cars, reverse engineered the F-14 and the Cobra during a war with Iraq and I have seen their technology up-close. They might not be a powerhouse but they are not some crappy middle east country either. Their drone production is actually better than China and Russia. Look up for the Ababil, Mohajer and others so you get a picture of how old their programs are and how advanced they are compared to China and Russia.

I'm a computer programmer, and yet I have to buy my furniture from a store. But wait, how is it possible that I could have the technological capacity to produce software when I have to rely on others for something as rudimentary as furniture? It's almost as if some skills and technical abilities were completely independent of others, and you could be very good at one while remaining completely ignorant of others...

I'm an American, and I know that Iran only recently was able to reverse-engineer the F-5 (early 60's tech) and still hasn't been able to do the same for the F-14 (mid 70's tech.) If they can't reverse-engineer a fighter that they've had for thirty years, and is based on decades-old US technology, what makes you think they can reverse-engineer current US tech in a reasonable amount of time?

There's quite a distance between "they're all primitive camel-riders" and "they're a technological power to rival the United States."